Pakistan

ihc ISLAMABAD: The appointment of Naeem Bokhari as the Pakistan Television (PTV) chairman appears to have been made in violation of guidelines set by the Supreme Court (SC), observed the chief justice of Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday. Hearing identical petitions against appointment of Mr Bokhari, IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah advised the counsel for the PTV chairman to …

KARACHI: The already strained relationship between the centre and Sindh soured further on Tuesday after the provincial authorities ruled out any possibility to return control of Karachi’s three major health facilities to Islamabad. The resolve was expressed during a press conference by Sindh government’s spokesman Barrister Murtaza Wahab when he clearly denied any compromise over the administrative control of the …

KARACHI: While Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah blamed the federal government for an acute gas shortage as well as plundering the province’s resources, Energy Minister Imtiaz Shaikh told the Sindh Assembly on Tuesday that the province would run out of natural gas in the next 12 years. Tuesday’s proceedings witnessed uproar and a chaotic situation when Speaker Agha Siraj …

LAHORE: The Punjab Health Facilities Management Company (PHFMC) allegedly violated the laid-down merit to help an ex-bureaucrat top the list for the chief executive officer of the company. The selection committee, headed by PHFMC chairman Sohail Ahmad, not only changed the advertised [marks] criteria but also put the ‘favourite’ candidate at the top of the panel right after the interview …

• Expresses no confidence in institution • Cabinet forms body to look into Broadsheet’s revelations • Tabish told to continue working as SAPM on power ISLAMABAD: The federal cabinet on Tuesday expressed no confidence in the office of Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP), with Prime Minister Imran Khan saying that corruption amounting to over Rs180 billion had been unearthed in …

ISLAMABAD: Highlighting paralysis of system of governance due to bureaucratic machinations, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday rejected the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) Nandipur reference against Prime Minister Imran Khan’s adviser Dr Babar Awan and former premier Raja Pervez Ashraf, terming it arbitrary. “It is in the public interest to protect the governance system from arbitrary exercise or abuse …

ISLAMABAD: A ruling party’s senator shamed the opposition for the hue and cry over ‘rule through ordinances’, saying the PPP government led by Benazir Bhutto promulgated as many as 357 ordinances in three years — from Oct 1996 to Nov 1996. Senator Waleed Iqbal, while taking part in a discussion on the issue in the lower house, said Senator Mian …

ISLAMABAD: After a number of harassment cases in educational institutions in the recent years, a parliamentary committee on Tuesday cleared a bill to pave the way for legislation to protect students from harassment. The Senate Standing Committee on Federal Education, which met with Senator Engineer Rukhsana Zuberi, cleared the ‘Protection against Harassment of Students in Educational Institutions Bill 2020’. The …

LAHORE: The National Account­abili­­ty Bureau (NAB), Lahore, has recommended closure of an inq­ui­­­ry against former railways minister and Pakistan Mus­lim League-Nawaz leader Khawaja Saad Rafique into the purchase of locomotives for want of evidence. The recommendation was sent to NAB chairman retired Justice Javed Iqbal on Tuesday, according to an official. The anti-graft watchdog had initiated the investigation against the …

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday said revelations by United Kingdom based firm Broadsheet had once again exposed the “massive scale of our ruling elites’ corruption and money laundering”, adding that these were just the “tip of the iceberg”. In a series of tweets, the premier said that the same people had earlier been exposed by the Panama Papers. “These …